Shangri-La: Near Extinction

2

The concept is great! Good piece for newbie actor/tress to cut their teeth on.

The cast was composed of unknown actors (not known to me anyway). There are movies that are so bad they become entertaining; this is NOT one of them. The dialog is bad, the fight scenes are bad, the special effects are bad, there is nothing noteworthy or redeeming at all. A small group of survivors are on a quest to find "Shangri-La." Along the way, they lose members and acquire others. Once the team arrived at their destination, the story loses all cohesiveness. People did things here, people did things there. It was as if the director was throwing darts at notes on the wall for ideas. More people died (badly due to more subpar special effects) and the movie ends with the protagonists continuing their journey to find "Shangri-La." The ending is opened ended which means that they may make more. I sincerely hope that they don't.

A new ice age generated by mankind to wipe out a plague has in turn killed off most of the human race. A motley group of survivors led by Vargas (likeable Eric Szmanda) embark on a perilous quest to reach a safe haven known as Shangri-La. Writer/director Nick Wauters keeps the absorbing story moving along at a constant pace, presents a vivid depiction of a bleak desolate wintry world, maintains a serious tone throughout, offers a neat array of colorful characters, and stages some thrilling last reel action with flair and skill. Moreover, Wauters warrants extra praise for making a band of mutants sympathetic protagonists while the hateful humans are the villains of the piece. The solid acting by the capable cast keeps this movie humming: Sara Malakal Lane as sensitive psychic Pax, Patrick Batiste as the angry Kalo, Rocky Bonifield as the flaky Gyro, Ewan Chung as the suspicious Tai, Josh Shibati as the two-fisted Aisa, Mykayla Sohn as the fragile Quint, Mercy Malick as the hard-nosed Dr. Jennifer Holliston, and Ken Narasaki as the excitable Dr. Linus Zhou. The CGI effects are pretty decent and acceptable considering the modest budget. A cool little flick.

A recurring theme of my IMDB reviews is the script. I have seen great scripts lift up severely low budget film because it had a solid foundation. Well I present to you my poster child for a lot of money spent on a movie in DESPERATE need of a script ... and scripting. This was dripping with opportunities. Real good cinematography. Even better effects for a not-so-low budget endeavor. Its possible the acting would be considered even better than that, if they hadn't been burdened with the worst script I have experienced in a long while. In the barest of hope that the crew is reading this ... The script is the easiest and cheapest thing to improve since it only requires the writers/directors to be involved and spend the time to make something good. This is well before you start paying cast and crew members. This script was HORRIBLE. You couldn't delay starting this movie for a month (or more like 3, as bad as this script was) before starting to shoot? SHAME ON YOU! The cast and crew now suffer for your impatience, as they have to live with the low ratings this movie will receive, or worse, for the high ratings it could have received.

I forced myself to sit through the entire movie hoping at some point it would improve...I was wrong, painfully wrong. This movie is not worth the time to sit through. There are plenty of other low budget movies that are far more tolerable than this, chose one of those instead of this abysmal piece of work.

If you make it past 30 minutes you have a MUCH higher tolerance for bad acting, CHEESY...'special'🙄 effects and (apologies to those actors who MUST already know this of their fellow cast members who this applies.... and if you happen to read this😏) REALLY bad 'acting'. Actually I was going to turn it off in the middle of the first scene but I believe in giving every movie and/or television show I choose to watch/view a fair opportunity to entertain me. Even though the potential was most definitely there (maybe with a bigger budget and/or better actors🤔) sadly this one failed MISERABLY😲. I SINCERELY don't get ANY joy in posting such a bad review and/or hurting ANYONE'S feelings but like I mentioned above "the truth IS the truth" and this movie....well.....was a BIG disappointment. My reason for posting this (my 3rd review ever) isn't to belittle those involved in this movie or to put down those 'things' I mentioned but to save the time of ANYONE who should happen to read this who is considering spending their time and/or money on this. As I remember others telling me in my younger years......"Just.........DON'T🙄😏" lol.

I admit I only made it about 20 minutes into the video. All of it up to that point had been shot inside a warehouse somewhere. The described events didn't match up with the video. Looked more like a walk through of the script without any set design. I would guess they have invested about 5 grand in costume and warehouse rental. Don't waste your time.

This movie really feels like it was meant to be the pilot for some new series. It has this odd intro spiel that's more common for a series, then it ends in a wind-up as if it's getting ready to start episode 2. But of course there aren't any episodes to follow. I'm guessing this was supposed to be a new series and it never got picked up. As a standalone movie it's not good. The acting is very forced and wooden. The dialog feels flat and scripted instead of flowing. The special effects are cringe worthy. It's an interesting idea, but needs work.

I tried, I really did. I think maybe the folks saying it "could" have been good may be right. It's just that I couldn't figure out how. Definitely not the worst movie I've ever seen.